Who is the Monster?

This workshop is inspired by Mary Shelley’s Viktor Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which is not just as a Gothic story, but presents us with some important meanings that lie under its surface, which can be addressed to the worldwide crisis we are now living and the uncertain future we are going to face. It confronts us with some crucial social and political questions: are science and technology allowed to do anything they like just because it is possible? And is such a conceit fated to generate monsters? Are we going to give up some of our human features as the only way to survive in a world dominated by algorithms? On the other hand, the novel hints to an even deeper flaw in human consciousness: do we really need to create our private and public ‘monsters’ (the stranger, the freak, the divergent) to blame and fear in order to preserve our identities, as if the otherness could threaten them? However, according to Robert Romanyshyn, in this disturbing story some seeds of hope are concealed: what if we accept the monster’s challenge and listen to what lies hidden at the margins of our mind? Shall we be able to “regard the monster as a radical teacher?” What if we look at it in the moonlight: shall we “see in that soft light, so different from the light of the solar mind of his maker, the beauty of the Monster?”

(quotes from: Romanyshyn R. D. (2018) Viktor Frankenstein, the Monster, and the Shadow of Technology. The Frankenstein Prophecies, Routledge, London).